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Published: July 12th 2010
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We began our tour of Indonesia in Kuta, Bali, a popular beach resort similar to those on the Greek Islands, with live music every night as well as bars and souvenir shops on most street corners. Most importantly it had plenty of bars with big screen tv's showing the world cup games, which we enjoyed watching on several occasions. Most of the time in Kuta we were in bask mode - eating, drinking and being merry, but we did venture out of the resort for a day trip which showed us everything that Bali had to offer. This was a fantastic day out, we got to see a number of temples, the awe inspiring volcano of Mount Batur, rice terraces and last but not least, the Monkey Forest. This is a sanctuary that allows visitors to stroll around their habitat. Whilst there, like most other tourists, we leapt at the opportunity to purchase some bananas to feed to the monkeys. Feed however would be an outright lie - we were in fact viciously mugged (as seen in photo!)
It was soon after this excellent day out that we headed to the Bromo national park. This is a sublime volcanic landscape,
where we had a lot of fun, a lava minute you might say. In order to truly experience the sheer magnificence of the scenery, we were advised to get up at 3.30am to catch sunrise on top of the mountain. As if this wasn't early enough- someone forgot to change our clocks from Bali to Java time, meaning we were in fact up at 2:30am, great one. Once we reached the viewpoint by jeep, we got our first glimpse of what all the fuss was about and it has to be said it was bloody GORGE! It was also here that Jeni got her first taste of altitude sickness, or so she thought. Richard was not convinced however responding "its not high enough to get altitude sickness, it's only 2000 meters high- pull yourself together!". As well as the viewpoint we were also taken to what is considered the main attraction itself, Mount Bromo. This is an active volcano giving off a constant puff of steam out of its crater. Its an amazing sight to behold both from the top (as Richard discovered) and the bottom (as Jeni did). It should be mentioned that the top of the crater smelled
like a cross between rotten eggs and Richard left foot. In contrast to our beautiful surroundings, our hotel found late at night after a 10hr journey was less than inspiring. Infact it resembled a 3rd world prison - except we had to pay for it. Luckily we moved to a much nicer place and spent our second day relaxing in the hotel garden.
After 2 days in Bromo, we were off to what we thought would be a charming provincial city called solo. Unfortunately it actually turned out to be a dump, with little to offer. There really was nothing to do here - so we certainly glad to have each others company. Being here alone would have been really depressing.
After just one day in Solo, we gladly left for our next destination of Yogyakarta. This immediately gave us a better impression than the previous city as it had a warmer, backpacker friendly vibe, all the amenities you could need including a minimart on our door step. We also managed to bag a room in a really nice hotel, which for the first time in Indonesia had running water and a private bathroom, with a city view
balcony to boot.
On our third day we were ready to do some more sightseeing so booked ourselves onto a day tour of the Dieng Plateau and Borobudur. The Dieng Plateau is yet another volcanic landscape situated high up in the clouds above central Java. Fog and clouds enveloped the hilltops giving it a particularly MISTerious feel. Our time here consisted of visiting 3 different sights including, a ruined Hindu temple (the oldest in Java) a still bubbling volcanic crater, which smelled even worse than Bromo. This time a mixture of rotten eggs a Richards right foot. We also sneaked a peak at the famous colour lake which lived up to its name by displaying a multitude of different colours. Our next stop on the tour was Borobudur, often described as one of Indonesia's most fascinating sights. The Buddhist temple bares a striking resemblance to the Angkor Temples in Cambodia and in our view equally impressive. Jogjakarta also had two more surprises in store for us over the next few days - which came in the form of earthquakes. That's right you heard it correctly we survived not one but two earthquakes. Luckily minimul damage was done to the
city, but they certainly came as a shock to the system. boom boom.
We soon realised that with 2 weeks left in Indonesia, we only actually had Bandung left on our itinery. We searched the lonely planet for some inspiration and stumbled across a decent sounding beach resort called Pangandaram- so headed there for 10 days. Our first day was alright; we explored the local area and tried to find the nearby bookshop (called magic mushroom bookshop). When we asked a local how to find it however, he gave us detail instructions on how to locate the hallucinogenic fungi. In his defence though, we were also given a strong health warning to boot!
After that the nine days all seemed to follow a similar pattern and was like groundhog day over and over. It's fair to say that although the surroundings were perfectly pleasant but after day 2 we were already looking forward to leaving. Our next stop was Bandung and on arrival we had high hopes as the Lonely Planet said it had once been described as the Paris of the East - unfortunately we soon realised that Slough of the East was more fitting. After a
long sleepless night for Jeni, who cried herself to sleep and Richard who sat up all night rocking like a loon we were desperate to get to Singapore ASAP.
The less said about this part of the journey the better ...... we are now on our way to Singapore however, where we plan to do a hint of splurging (having survived the last 12 days on fried rice to save money - we feel we truly deserve it) We are really looking forward to seeing what Jeni's sister Lindsay has in store for us and we will be sure to report back.
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